Most Affiliate Programs Suck
Everyone talks about affiliate programs like they’re magical money-printing machines that multiply your marketing efforts overnight.
In reality – most affiliate programs drain your resources, waste your time, and deliver a pathetic bump in sales.
There’s a clear reason most affiliate programs fail, and it’s not what you think.
The True Cost of Most Affiliate Programs
Most people only look at commission rates when calculating the cost of their affiliate program.
But the real expense isn’t in the payouts – it’s in the countless hours and resources drained by managing a program that’s set up to fail.
Time Spent Managing Dead Weight
In nearly all affiliate programs – less than 10% of the affiliates make any sales at all.
Administrative Work
Every month brings another round of commission reports to generate, tax forms to process, and compliance issues to track.
Keeping Fraud In-Check
You spend hours checking to make sure your affiliates aren’t competing with you, or doing other fraudulent activities.
All this affiliate management, and for what?
The larger your affiliate program grows, the more time you spend on everything except actually growing sales.
And here’s the kicker: every new affiliate you add amplifies these problems. Meanwhile, the small handful of partners driving real revenue barely need any of this overhead at all.
Checking for Fraud
Every New Affiliate is Another Risk to Manage
You spend hours scanning for fake sales, reviewing suspicious patterns, and monitoring for compliance violations.
Every new affiliate increases the chance of someone gaming your system or misrepresenting your brand.
Updating Your Brand & Product
Simple Changes Become Major Projects
With hundreds of affiliates, a simple brand update means hours of tracking down old content that needs revision. What should be a quick update turns into weeks of auditing and following up.
Incentivizing Affiliates to Sell
Pushing a Boulder Uphill for Minimal Returns
You spend hours crafting “reinvigoration” emails, planning special promotions, and trying to wake up dormant affiliates – knowing that most will never respond.
What If You Only Worked With Partners Who Actually Move The Needle?
You’ve been sold on this idea that more affiliates equals more sales. But time and time again, we have heard and personally seen that less than 10% of affiliates in most affiliate programs actually generate sales. But you still need to spend your time managing those affiliates, even if they never drive meaningful revenue.
What if you could focus all that energy on the partners who matter? Imagine spending your days supporting relationships that consistently drive sales, collaborating with people who understand your value, and growing through genuine partnerships instead of endless recruitment.
The truth is, you don’t need hundreds of affiliates to build a successful program. You need a small group of committed partners who treat your product like their own. That’s where the partner-first approach comes in – and it changes everything about how you build and manage your program.
Build Your Program Around Partners Who Actually Sell
Instead of trying to build a massive network of affiliates, the partner-first approach focuses on building meaningful relationships with a small group of trusted partners who can actually move the needle for your business.
This means carefully selecting partners who already serve your ideal customers, working closely with them to ensure their success, and treating them like an extension of your team rather than just another affiliate ID.
Seek Out Partners, Not Affiliates
Look for people who already have deep relationships with your ideal customers.
Work With Dozens, Not Hundreds
Focus your energy on a small group of partners who can drive real results.
Build Relationships That Last
Treat partnerships like long-term business relationships, instead of transactions.
Support What Works
Put your time into helping successful partners grow instead of chasing inactive affiliates.
Good Partners Know Other Good Partners
Your best partners will connect you with others who share their values and approach.
Stop Running Your Program Like Everyone Else
The old approach to affiliate programs is broken. Honestly, we don’t think it ever worked. The best programs are the ones ran by people who have figured this out.
It’s time to think differently about how you build partnerships that actually drive growth.
Old Way:
Approve anyone who applies and hope some of them sell
New Way:
Carefully select partners who already serve your ideal customers
Old Way:
Focus on recruiting more affiliates to increase sales
New Way:
Focus on making your best partners more successful
Old Way:
Spend time creating marketing materials and chasing inactive affiliates
New Way:
Spend time working closely with partners who actually drive revenue
Transform How You Think About Partner Programs with Siren
Siren isn’t just another affiliate plugin. It’s a complete re-imagining of how partnership programs should work, built after watching countless businesses waste time and money on bloated affiliate networks that deliver minimal results. Every feature is designed to help you build focused, manageable programs around partners who actually drive growth.
And here’s what makes it special…
Siren is built around a simple truth: managing a hundred affiliates who never sell is worse than working with three partners who do. It’s designed to help you build and maintain the kinds of focused programs that actually work, without drowning in administrative overhead.
The platform comes from years of watching businesses struggle with traditional affiliate programs. These experiences revealed that successful programs don’t come from massive affiliate networks – they come from building meaningful relationships with a small group of partners who truly understand your value.
But here’s the reality…
Most businesses know their affiliate programs are broken. They see the minimal results, feel the administrative burden, and understand something needs to change. Yet they keep following the same “more affiliates = more sales” playbook because that’s how everyone else does it.
That’s why Siren is different. It helps you build focused programs that let you spend your time supporting partners who matter instead of managing affiliates who don’t.
The platform continues evolving based on feedback from businesses who’ve discovered that smaller, more focused programs consistently outperform massive affiliate networks.
I built Siren because I saw firsthand how partnerships transformed my own company’s growth.
We moved from constantly chasing new clients to having trusted partners bring us pre-qualified opportunities.
Every feature in Siren comes from real experience building and managing these partnerships.
Alex Standiford – Founder, Novatorius
Get Started Today.
Siren provides the foundation for growing through industry partnerships. Start small by tracking introductions and rewarding collaboration, then expand as your partnership strategy develops.
Get started today with our 30-day money-back guarantee.